you're better off here
by therainkeepsfalling
Summary: Pre. Kate has stopped investigating her mother's case and goes away to her dad's cabin. She is all alone until an unexpected guest shows up and the weather traps them together. (a prompt from castlefanficprompts)


The streets are chalked with white salt - an attempt to keep the streets clear for when the snow arrives in the next couple of days. It isn't going to stop her though. She throws her final bag into the trunk of her car and walks around to the driver's side, sliding inside the warm car to escape winter's chill that is making itself known outside. The car's tires crunch over the salt crystals as she drives down the streets of New York, making her way north towards her dad's cabin.

She needs to escape the city and all the haunting it brings her.

The drive was pretty lack luster; she had time to think about what she will do when she gets to the cabin since it is winter, majority of the outdoors were out, especially swimming, one of her favorite activities from her summers she spent here as a child. She had figured she would clean the inside up a bit, catch up on reading the books she had gotten behind on, and just relax for a week or two.

Pulling up on the gravel driveway to the cabin she remembers the last time she was here. She was a teen, dreading being dragged up here for a weekend instead of being able to go out with her friends. How mean she was to her mom for making her comes, but how much fun she had after she dropped her attitude. Kate would have never admitted to having fun back then, but it was all gone now, never the chance for it to happen again. Her heart sinks at that, the good memories mixing with the bad, but she pushes herself forward to enter the dusty cabin.

She makes her way to her bedroom to set her belongings down, before she goes back to the car to get the groceries she has brought with her. After she gets settled it's about time for bed, so she with a slight air of melancholy she decides to turn in early for once.

The next morning Kate sips her cup of coffee while she relaxes in one of the living room chairs, basking in the quiet and peaceful air surrounding her. Her thoughts are interrupted when she hears a noise coming from outside and she startles - no one should be anywhere close to her cabin. Setting down her hot cup carefully, she reaches for her piece - even on a vacation she needs the security of it - and aims it at the door.

* * *

Rick's drive up to this secluded cabin was rather peaceful, lots of gorgeous scenery and almost no traffic - though that might have to do with the fact that a large amount of snow is coming, so everyone is bundled up indoors. He is excited to spend two weeks in peace writing his new book, and once it's finished he can return home to his daughter and focus on her without deadlines looming like a storm cloud over his head.

He drives up the cabin's long driveway, the gravel path lined with tall coniferous trees on either side. He notices a small lake through the break in trees as he shuts off the car's engine, preparing to step out into the freezing cold.

He shivers as he walks up the wooden steps, a bag in either hand, setting one down to reach for the key the man who owns the cabin said would be hidden under the mat. Sliding the metal key into the lock he unlocks the door and pushes it open, feeling the warm air hit him as he steps into the room, but any peaceful thoughts that he had are banished when he comes face to face with the barrel of a gun.

"Oh my gosh!" he yells, dropping his bags simultaneously, as he instinctively leans away from the woman pointing her handgun at him. "Who are you?" he manages to squeak out, his heart pounding in his chest as he tries to wrap his head around what just happened.

"I could ask you the same thing, what are you doing breaking into my cabin?" the woman replies as she glares at him. She's pretty, looks younger than him, but he can't focus on her looks when he realizes what she just said.

"Your cabin? I'm renting the cabin for two weeks, from a guy named Jim - the owner - so I don't think I'm breaking in," he replied, trying not to look as intimidated as he felt with her eyes piercing as she stares.

She lowers the gun as she begins to explain with a sigh. "My dad must have rented it to you, without telling me."

Relief washes through him from there no longer a weapon being aimed at his head.

She continues, "I'm happy to pay you back whatever you paid my dad to stay here, but as you can see it isn't empty." Her glare has softened, but she's still clearly agitated from his intrusion.

"Well, I didn't catch your name," he says, trying to learn something about this woman who he is finding more intriguing by the minute.

"Kate," she answers replying to his question that doesn't _really_ matter, because he is leaving, but he feels happier to know this about her. He came up here to get away, so he'll respect that and back out.

"Well, Kate, I'm Rick and I came up here to get away from the city and write for two weeks while my daughter is away."

* * *

It finally hits her then who this is, Rick Castle. _Oh, Kate, you can't lose it, keep it together._ She feels a bit bad for welcoming him with a gun to his face and kicking him out of a vacation, but she needs this time away.

"I'm sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Castle, but you are going to have to leave and go write somewhere else," she says firmly.

A small smile spreads across his face. "You're a fan?"

 _Oh no._

"Excuse me?" she says, her voice higher and she pulls her lips between her teeth nervously.

"You called me Mr. Castle. I only said my name was Rick, so you must be a fan to know me," he replies with a small smirk, and her gut clenches, he's cute but she's annoyed.

"Look, Rick I came up here to sort some things out so I would really appreciate it if you left. I'm sorry that you drove up here for nothing," she says, trying to usher him back towards the door.

He steps outside and she shuts and locks the door, going back to her coffee, that by now has lost its heat. Kate begins pouring the brown liquid down the drain, when there is a pounding at the door. "God, what now," she mutters.

Whipping the door open she sees him standing there all bundled up in layers, his blue eyes looking into hers.

He's kind of adorable.

"My car won't start and the snow is really coming down," he says, still standing on the cabin's porch. "So… It looks like I'm going to be stuck here with you until the weather improves," he says with a hopeful smile spread across his face.

"What? No," she says adamantly.

"It will just be until I can get my car to start and the snow stops, probably two or three days tops," he replies, almost pleading in his tone.

She sighs. "Fine."

* * *

It has been four days and he is still here. The snow has only worsened, so they have been snowed in, stuck together in her dad's cabin. So here she is curled up on the couch with a book in her hand — which was suppose to be his book, but she could _not_ give him the satisfaction - and he is staring at her as he sits in the chair closest to the fireplace that warms the room.

She finally breaks the silence."What?"

"Did you know have gorgeous eyes?" he says.

She ducks her gaze back to her book, trying to avoid his eyes, she can feel them on her, staring deeply into her, trying to read her, peel back the layers.

"Take a picture it will last longer," she finally replies after he has stared for another five or so minutes, every so often darting back to the notebook in hand, scribbling something down, then his eyes are back on her.

"I… umm," he sputters out.

"Were staring." She stands up, throws the blanket that was covering her over the back of the couch, her socked feet moving towards the hall's entrance, "I'm going to go take a shower," she says from over her shoulder.

He is still in the same spot he was when she leaves, still jotting down notes. She wonders about what he is writing, almost asks him, but that all flies out the window when he closes his notebook and his tall figure stands and walks toward her.

"Save enough hot water for me? A hot shower sounds nice," he smirks wandering down the hallway towards the bathroom.

They have both settled into a semi-routine over the past 4 days, somewhat reluctantly, but they have no choice. Her and Castle both help make dinner and then they eat at the kitchen table, the meal filled with awkward silences and looks. Tonight starts off no different, Rick said he would start boiling the water for the pasta and she had agreed to make the sauce, and they work together like a well-oiled machine, dinner complete in no time.

The meal begins in silence like all the nights before, though unlike the first night, there's less tension surrounding the atmosphere. She is almost halfway done with her bowl of noodles when he begins talking.

"So, Kate, we have been here for four days already and I know so little about you. So tell me something about yourself," he says, as his hopeful blue eyes stare into her more than hazel eyes. It's a little daunting, this famous author inquiring about her life, and her skin prickles under his gaze, unsure of how much information she should relinquish.

She finishes the bite she is working on before setting down her fork and begins to answer, "I'm a cop."

"A cop," he repeats.

"Yeah, a cop." She raises her eyebrows, almost challenging him to say something about her profession. "So tell me something that I can't find on Page 6," she asks back instead, deciding to indulge him in this game of his.

"Believe it or not Page 6 gets it wrong the majority of the time."

"Like what?"

"I divorced my ex, because she cheated on me and not the other way around."

There is a ring of truth and pain in his words and her heart sinks for him, as his face turns serious.

A small "Oh" escapes her lips followed, by. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah me too."

* * *

The rest of the night is filled with deafening silence, confessions and hesitance looming over the evening. They both find their way back to the living room furniture, planted in their respective seats as they occupy themselves. He is back scribbling down notes in his notebook and Kate's face is focused between two book pages.

He had been eyeing a photo on the mantel for the past two days, waiting for the right time to ask, he figures after the brief dinner conversation they had tonight it would be okay.

"How old were you in this picture?" he asks in a quiet almost hushed tone.

* * *

She looks up, seeing him pointing at the picture, the one from her last time up here with her mom. _Oh, this hurts._ She can feel tears beginning to appear in her eyes, such a simple question bringing back waves of memories.

"Sixteen. I was sixteen the last time we were up here," she responds with sadness in her voice as she's flooded with nostalgia and heartbreak.

Her hazel eyes begin to swell up with water, Rick must notice but he apparently decides to push forward a little more, clearly wanting to peel back another layer of Kate.

"You look like your mom, you have the same dark brown hair as her."

The mention of her mom pushes her over the edge, the dam breaks, her tears begin to roll down her cheeks, the onslaught of emotions too much to even worry about crying in front of a relative stranger. Rick must see he pushed too far, as he apologizes immediately when she gets up and storms back to her room shutting the door and sliding down it. Crouched into a ball she cries there - the whole point of the trip was to work through these issues, so she could go back to the city and keep moving on with her life. She wasn't going to give up on bringing her mom justice, but she was going to have to be able to keep it together if she wanted to.

Kate takes deep breaths, trying to calm herself and push the hurt back down. After wiping the tears from her face, she opens the bedroom door, and there he is sitting on the wood floor across from her door. A rush of warmth runs through her at the sight, he looks so worried for her that any annoyance she had at him for pushing melts away.

"Are you okay, can I do anything?" he asks her as he stands up from the hardwood.

"I hope I will be." She takes a deep breath in. Time to explain. "Remember how I said I came up here to work something out?" He nods, so she continues, "it was about my mom," she says with a sad smile, reassuring him that she's okay...

"Oh," he replies, nodding again. "Well, how about I make you a cup of coffee and we can talk about it," he says, extending his hand as she smiles at her, a genuine thing that has her stretching her lips even wider.

"I would like that, Castle."

* * *

Thank you, thank you to my fab beta and 1/3 of my mom triangle, Alex for yelling at me to do my homework. Emily/other mom, thank you for the title and the encouragement with this.

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